Despite the Internal Revenue Bureau director’s assertion that having 20 of her employees testify before the Senate Finance Committee next week would cause havoc in the IRB, committee chair Lorraine Berry is standing behind her decision to subpoena 20 of the bureau’s supervisors.
On Tuesday, Berry subpoenaed 20 IRB supervisory staffers to testify before her committee July 6 to expose "management and operational deficiencies" in the agency.
The next day IRB Director Claudette Farrington said that having all the employees attend the hearing would leave IRB offices on St. Thomas and St. Croix essentially unmanned.
Additionally, Farrington asked for the meeting to be rescheduled to July 11 or 12 because next week contains the Emancipation Day and July Fourth holidays. She said three days of work would be lost because of the holidays and the need to testify before the committee.
But Berry confirmed the July 6 meeting date Thursday and her desire to have all 20 employees present. Included in the list of subpoenaed IRB workers are Farrington, 12 employees from St. Thomas and seven from St. Croix.
IRB currently has four vacant positions, including a chief for the Criminal Investigations Division on St. Croix; a supervisor of territorial taxes on St. Thomas; a supervisor for the Revenue Collection Section on St. Thomas; and a deputy director on St. Thomas.
Berry has said the hearing will focus on IRB’s collection efforts, "the lack of which adversely impacts on the revenue stream of the Virgin Islands government and its operational budget."